Scarface and the Alien - Chapter Two


In this chapter Miles starts school and makes a new friend, and he also starts playing some interesting new games. And he's quick to try out what he's learning on his brother, too...

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By the end of the week Miles had decided that moving had definitely been an excellent idea. He’d argued against it when it had first been suggested, mainly because he didn’t want to have to leave all his friends, but he was already sure that he would make new friends here really easily – indeed, he already thought that Graham was going to be as important a friend as any that he had had in London. Plus, the new lot were really interesting, especially when it came to doing things you weren’t supposed to.

He’d enjoyed the penalty game, which he’d found really exciting: he’d never done anything like that before, and now he was eagerly looking forward to playing it again. He thought he wouldn’t even mind too much if he lost – after all, there was nothing wrong with his body, and he reckoned he was bigger where it counted than Jamie, at least, so there was no reason for him to feel ashamed.

He wasn’t sure about getting Robert’s sister involved, though: while he wasn’t worried about other boys looking at him, he thought being undressed in front of a girl would be really embarrassing. And he wasn’t that bothered about seeing a girl undressed – as he’d told Graham, he didn’t think there was much to look at until they got a bit older. He thought it would be much funnier to make Graham strip. Though maybe he could do that anyway, if he got good enough at the racing game to challenge him…

It was strange: he’d never really thought too much about anything to do with sex before. He’d had the usual Health and Relationships class at school, but it hadn’t seemed all that important at the time. But somehow watching Jamie doing his press-ups with an erection had awoken something inside him, and now he was keen to investigate further.

He’d been out for bike rides with Graham a couple of times, exploring the local area a bit and even riding into the nearest large town, about five miles away. This had quite a good shopping centre, as well as a cinema and most of the usual fast food restaurants, so obviously he wasn’t quite as far from civilisation as he had first feared: it was only about twenty minutes away by bike, or there was a direct bus every hour.

On the Friday morning Graham took him on another long bike ride, then back to his house for lunch, and after they had eaten he took Miles up to his bedroom, closed the door and turned on the PlayStation.

“Okay,” he said, “are you ready for a proper challenge today?”

“You mean we’re going to do this properly, and the loser has to..?”

“Yep. Unless you’re chicken, of course.”

“I’m not chicken, it’s just… well, you’ve been playing this game for ages longer than me.”

“Not really – I only got it for Christmas. And, anyway, you actually beat me last time.”

“Only ‘cos you kept crashing.”

“So? That happens sometimes. So, you chicken, or what?”

“Okay. But next time we’re going to have to play something I’m good at. Apart from penalties, of course: we already know I’m better than you at those.”

“You wish. Okay, let’s race. Loser has to do ten press-ups but then stay naked for half an hour afterwards.”

“What?!”

“Chicken! Chick, chick, chick, chick, CHICKEN!”

“Okay, then. But if I win you’re going to be in so much trouble.”

“Like that’s gonna happen. Come on, then.”

So they raced, and Miles wasn’t entirely surprised to discover that Graham’s strange clumsiness, which had led to him crashing five times during their previous race, had completely disappeared today. Nonetheless he had picked up the game quite well by now, and he ran Graham a lot closer than he had expected. But he still came second.

“Oh, dear,” said Graham, grinning at him. “Now you’re for it.”

“Best of three?”

“No chance. Get them off.”

Graham went and wedged his chair under the door handle, just to make absolutely sure that his sister couldn’t walk in on them, and then sat on the bed, grinning expectantly. Miles sighed, stood up and began to get undressed, and as he unbuttoned his shirt he started to get an erection. Now that was a bit embarrassing, and he wondered why it was happening – although at the same time he realised that it would make it look nice and big, and somehow he didn’t mind that idea too much.

He stripped to his pants and then turned round, but Graham wasn’t prepared to let him get away with that.

“No hiding!” he said. “You have to face me so I can see.”

“Well, okay then,” said Miles, pulling his pants off and starting to turn to face him. “But it’s just going to make you jealous.”

He faced Graham and then stood with his hands at his side so that Graham could have a proper look.

“Wow, Miles, that’s pretty big,” said Graham, leaning forward to have a proper look. “How long is it?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never measured.”

Graham went and picked up a ruler from his desk and held it alongside Miles’ erection.

“Ten and a quarter centimetres,” he reported. “That’s not bad – how old are you?”

“Ten,” said Miles. “I’ll be eleven in July.”

“Wow, you’re younger than me, then – I’ll be eleven next month. And you’ve got quite big balls, too.”

“Do you think so? I mean, I’ve never really looked at anyone else – except Jamie last time we played – so I don’t know if mine are big or not.”

“I think they are. Can I see what they feel like?”

Miles wasn’t sure about that – being touched there by another boy seemed a bit… well, weird. But then he sort of shrugged mentally – after all, he didn’t think Graham was likely to hurt him.

“Go on, then,” he said.

Graham gently cupped Miles’s balls in his hand, and Miles gasped, because it tickled. Graham stroked them a little and then did the same thing to Miles’s erection, making it twitch. And that felt strange, too, but it was a nice sort of strange.

“You know,” said Graham, holding Miles’s balls in one hand and his erection in the other, “I could make you do anything I wanted now, because if you refused I’d just pull everything off and make you into a girl. I could make you swear to obey me for ever, or force you to promise to play naked next time we play football, even if Robyn plays. You’d be so embarrassed…”

He let go. “Obviously I won’t, though,” he said. “You don’t do stuff like that to your mates. Besides, you might beat me up. Obviously I’m stronger than you, so you couldn’t, but you might try, and then I’d have to hurt you.”

“You couldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Yeah?” said Graham, pushing him onto the bed and jumping on top of him. “Let’s find out!”

“That’s not fair!” said Miles, grabbing his wrists. “You’ve got all your clothes on!”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

They wrestled for a bit, but Graham was on top to start with, and once he’d put his knee against Miles’s balls and threatened to ram it up hard Miles stopped struggling and surrendered.

“Next time we’ll see how you do when you haven’t got any clothes on,” he said, sitting up as soon as Graham got off him.

“You’ll have to beat me at racing first. Come on, let’s have another race. And don’t forget: you’re not allowed to get dressed for another twenty-four minutes.”

Scowling, Miles sat next to him and picked up the controller, and for a while he thought he was actually going to win this one. And it was obvious from the way Graham was muttering rude words under his breath as he jabbed at his controller that this time he wasn’t trying to lose. But two laps from the finish he managed to overtake Miles once more, and he held on to the slight lead until he crossed the finishing line.

“You lucky bastard!” commented Miles.

“I was, a bit,” admitted Graham. “But you still lost. So that's another thirty minutes before you're allowed to get dressed. And now it's time for the press-ups, I think – and it’ll have to be twenty, because you didn’t actually do the first lot. Except you can’t start yet because it’s gone soft, and you have to have a stiffy to do press-ups.”

“Who says?”

“Me. Lie on the bed.”

So Miles lay on his back on the bed and Graham came and sat beside him. And then he started touching Miles’s groin, but using only very quick, fleeting brushes of his finger. He slid his fingers up the inside of the top of Miles’s thighs, right next to his balls, but without quite touching them; he gave a quick, feather-light stroke to each ball and to the tip of Miles’s foreskin; he scratched very lightly with a fingernail on either side of the base of Miles’s penis. And he broke off from doing that to caress each of Miles’s nipples, too, before starting the cycle again.

It only took about thirty seconds for Miles’s body to start to respond, and within a minute his penis was pointing up stiffly once more. Graham went on caressing it for another half-minute or so, and Miles found himself actually liking it: it felt exciting, somehow. He was disappointed when Graham stopped and stood up.

“That’s better,” Graham told him. “Now it’s nice and big again. Now you can do your press-ups.”

“How did you learn to do that?” Miles asked him.

“Well… look, you swear not to tell anyone?”

“Of course – we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Well, obviously. But…”

“Look, if I can trust you to hold my balls, I reckon you can trust me to keep your secrets – or don’t you think so?”

“Of course I do. Sorry, Miles. Well, it was Tom who showed me how to do that. And he learned it from Kevin – that’s his brother, the one we told you about, who we made do nudey press-ups. Seems Kevin does it to him sometimes. I don’t know where Kevin learned it, though. Anyway, sometimes me and Tom play strip games, and last time he beat me he made mine go hard, just to see what it looked like. And that’s how he did it. He says it works every time, and it does seem to – wouldn’t you say?” And Graham flicked the tip of Miles’s erection, making it quiver. “So: twenty press-ups, I think.”

So Miles dropped to the carpet and did twenty press-ups. Graham just let him do the first ten in peace, and then he started to distract him by prodding Miles’s erection with his ruler or using it to deliver a light blow to his buttocks. Miles managed to ignore this and carry on, but when he finished he stood up and glared at his friend.

“You just wait till it’s your turn,” he said. “I’ll stick pins in your bum, or put a hedgehog under your balls so every time you drop down you get a load of quills in you. Or something like that.”

“I like that idea. I’ll have to try to catch a hedgehog before the next time you come round.”

“In that case I hope they’re all still hibernating. Okay, I’m not risking racing you again, otherwise I’ll end up having to stay naked all day. Got any cards?”

Graham produced a pack from his cupboard.

“Can you play crib?” Miles asked.

“No. How do you play that?”

“I’ll show you.” And for the next ten minutes or so Miles explained the rules of cribbage, and then they played five or six hands to give Graham the idea of how it went in practice. And then Miles asked for a pen and a piece of paper.

“Now we’ll do it properly,” he said. “First one to 121 wins. Normally you have a board to keep the score on – we’ve got a couple at home, so I’ll have to remember to bring one next time I come – but you can just do it on paper. Obviously some of this game is luck, but there’s a lot of skill, too. We quite often play at home. Today we’ll just play that the loser has to strip – if it’s you – or stay stripped, if it’s me, and do press-ups, but once you get good at it – and it doesn’t take too long to learn – we can play a forfeit for every five points, or a minute of forfeits for every point. So if you reach 121 while I’m on 108 I’d get thirteen minutes when I’d have to do whatever you said.”

“That sounds like fun,” said Graham, grinning again. “I’ll have to start thinking up some good forfeits. Okay, let’s play – but today it’s just win and lose, like you said.”

“Right. Cut for deal.”

Miles won the cut and dealt the first hand. As he’d said, there is a certain amount of skill knowing what to keep and what to put in the box, and playing the cards out calls for some skill, too. But luck also plays a big part, and pretty soon Graham was actually ahead.

“I like this game,” he said. “I think if you lose again I might have to make you stay bare until you go home – after all, three losses in a row does deserve punishing.”

“Okay,” agreed Miles, rather rashly.

Gradually he caught up, and then had one spectacular hand that scored twenty-four, and after that Graham stopped teasing him. And in the end Miles won by eight points.

“Come on, then,” he said, triumphantly, “let’s see what you’ve got.”

“Okay. But you’re still not allowed to get dressed for another…” Graham checked his watch. “...sixteen minutes.”

He stood up, put the cards away and then got undressed. It didn’t look very big at first, because it was soft.

“Come here,” ordered Miles. “I have to make it go hard, remember?”

“Okay, but then I’m going to make yours go hard again, too.”

“Fair enough.”

So Graham lay on the bed and Miles sat down beside him and started to do what Graham had done to him, little feather-light touches, short, gentle caresses and so on, and in far less than a minute Graham was fully erect. The interesting thing was that Miles’s own penis went stiff at the same time, even though neither of them was touching it.

“Now let’s see how big it is,” said Miles, grabbing the ruler from the bedside table and grinning: he could already see that Graham’s was smaller than his.

“You don’t need to do that,” said Graham, trying to sit up.

“Oh, yes, I do,” said Miles, pushing him back down again and holding the ruler alongside. “Eight and a half centimetres. So, which of us is bigger?”

“Shut up!”

“Answer the question!” demanded Miles, taking hold of Graham’s balls and squeezing gently.

“Okay, you are.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“You are, you bastard!” shouted Graham.

“And don’t you forget it,” said Miles, letting go and helping Graham to stand up. And Graham grabbed him and tried to push him over, and Miles clung on, and for a couple of minutes they wrestled inconclusively, rolling around on the floor.

Eventually Miles ended up on top, but he just pinned Graham down without trying to force a submission.

“This is a really good laugh,” he said. “Do you and the others do this sort of thing a lot?”

“Not really. I’ve played strip games with Tom a couple of times, that’s all. But you’re right, it is a good laugh. Maybe we’ll have to see if the others would like to join in. I reckon Jamie would, for a start, and maybe Rob. I’m not sure about Jack – I mean, he talks about girls a lot. But we could try. Can you play crib with more than two players?”

“You can have three or four, but if you have four then you play with partners, so it’s two against two. Wouldn’t it be easier just to beat them all at racing?”

“I’m not sure I could: they’ve all got either an Xbox or a PlayStation. I’d have to find a really hard game that none of them have got.”

“Make sure you teach me to play before we challenge them, then.”

“Depends if you get off me now.”

So Miles stood up and helped Graham to his feet. They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then Graham grabbed his boxers. “Let’s get dressed,” he said. “Then I’ll have a look through my games and see if we can find something nice and complicated…”


Monday March 31st

Back to school today. Obviously in my case that doesn’t actually mean leaving the house, but Miles set off this morning looking more enthusiastic about school than I have ever seen him. I think being allowed to ride to school on his own is a lot to do with it: it makes him feel grown-up. It’s almost all on country lanes where there are hardly any cars, so it should be safe, and he’s meeting his new friend Graham before he gets anywhere near the short section that’s on a slightly busier road, so they will be able to look after each other.

My mother is talking about buying a small shed for the garden for me to use for my science experiments – especially chemistry. She doesn’t really want me mixing chemicals in the house, not because she doesn’t trust me – she knows I know what I’m doing – but because it sometimes produces some pretty nasty smells. I really like the idea of having my own laboratory even if it’s really just a garden shed. And maybe if it’s really going to be my lab she’ll let me put up my music posters there – she won’t let me have them up in my bedroom. She particularly objected when I put up the Cradle of Filth poster, which I thought was a bit unfair – after all, it’s my room. And their music is really great, even if my mother doesn’t like their name.

I’ve got my bedroom set out just how I want it now, with my desk just next to the window, so I get plenty of natural light. I don’t want to damage my eyes by straining them – everyone thinks you have to wear glasses if you’re brainy, and I want to prove that isn’t true.

I generally work until about five o’clock, so I would probably have time to go back to the special place after I finish work, but I’m going to wait until the weekend. I want to have time to have a proper search for the portal. And I think if I go there too often, maybe it won’t seem quite so special. I think I want to keep it for weekends, or for really important occasions.


Miles rode to Graham's house and knocked for him, and then they rode on together to the school. They had time for a quick kick-about in the playground – though they had to use a tennis ball, because footballs weren't allowed – and then the bell went and they went inside. Miles had to go to the head teacher's office first to make sure all of his details had been recorded completely, and then the secretary took him to his new form-room. His teacher said hello to him and then told the class that Miles had just moved from London, and she was sure everyone would make him feel welcome.

Of course Miles already knew four of his fellow-students, and he had hoped that maybe there would be a spare seat next to one of them. But Graham was sitting next to Robert, and Jamie and Jack were sitting together, so it obviously wasn't going to be possible. In fact, the only spare seat – next to a boy, anyway: he really didn't want to start out sitting next to a girl – was at the back of the class, next to a skinny, ugly-looking boy with untidy black hair, pale skin, blue eyes, protruding ears and a big overbite.

Oh, well, Miles thought, at least sitting next to that is going to make me look even better-looking than I really am. So he dumped his bag on the floor next to his desk and sat down.

“Hello,” said his neighbour. “I'm Twitch.”

“I'm Miles... Twitch? Is that your surname? Do we have to use surnames here?”

“No. My name's Noel, but nobody calls me that. I'll tell you about it later – if one of the others doesn't first.”

So Miles's first day at his new school got under way. He discovered that his old school was a little behind this one in maths – here they were already doing geometry, which was completely new to him. But in other subjects he found he was ahead of his new colleagues.

During the lunch break he did a little more kicking about with Graham and his other friends.

“I'm sorry we weren't able to find you a seat next to one of us,” Graham told him. “We did ask, but Miss Steadman said we couldn't change places. So you're stuck with Twitch. Unlucky.”

“What's wrong with Twitch?”

“Apart from looking like his face hit a bus, you mean? Well, he has fits. Only short ones, usually, because he takes stuff to control it, but occasionally he has a big one. That's why there's a big area of empty floor next to his chair, just in case. He got through the whole of last term without needing it, so the stuff he takes usually works.”

“Oh. Is he dangerous?”

“No, of course not! Why should he be dangerous?”

“I mean, am I likely to get hit in the face, if he starts flailing his arms about or something?”

“No, it's nothing like that. Usually he just seems to go into a trance for a few seconds and sits there twitching a bit. And he usually knows if he's about to have a big one, so it gives him time to get on the floor. You'll be safe enough.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“They told you, then,” said Twitch at the start of afternoon school.

“Yes, but they said you were okay most of the time. I mean, you are, aren't you?”

“Oh, yes. Just don't flash bright lights in my face.”

Miles didn't know if he was joking or not, so he didn't say anything. He thought it was unlikely he'd be doing anything with bright lights, anyway.

At the end of the day he rode home thinking that, apart from the maths – which Martin could always help him with – he was going to be fine at his new school. He didn't even have very much homework...


Saturday April 5th

It's raining. It's been raining since Thursday night, on and off: according to the weather forecast there's a depression in the North Sea, which is bringing down a cold airstream from the north, and it isn't likely to move very far until early next week. It doesn't bother me that much, though it meant my mother had to take Miles to school by car yesterday. But it's stopped me from going out to the special place today, and it looks as if I won't be able to go tomorrow, either. And that's really frustrating, because the longer I wait the more certain I am that I'll find something really exciting there.

I might even risk going tomorrow if it isn't raining too hard, though I'll have to sneak out, because my mother worries about my health and she won't let me out if she thinks I'll catch cold. And I certainly won't risk it if there's any chance of a storm – and the weather forecast tonight did say thunderstorms were likely. If that happens I'll just stay at home and try to write a bit more of my story.


The weather forecast was right, and half an hour or so after Martin went to bed that Saturday night a thunderstorm started. He slept through the first couple of rolls of thunder, but the third one was much louder and woke him up. For a couple of minutes he huddled under the bedclothes, trying to convince himself that he was perfectly safe, that he was inside a solid house and so was in no danger of being struck by lightning. But a couple more flashes outside the window, hotly followed by loud claps of thunder, proved too much, and his logic vanished in the face of a more primitive fear.

He jumped out of bed and ran to his brother's room, which was right next to his. He knocked and then went straight in, and Miles rolled over in bed to face him.

“You okay, Mars?” he asked, sleepily.

Martin shook his head, and a further thunderclap made him flinch visibly.

In the past Miles had always been willing to help Martin to cope with his phobia, and he still was now. But as he woke up properly he realised that this was an opportunity to push his newly-acquired interest a little further.

“Do you want to come in with me?” he asked.

Martin nodded.

“Well, okay. But I bet you've wet yourself, haven't you?”

“No, I haven't!” answered Martin, indignantly: it was at least two years since he'd been scared enough to wet himself in a thunderstorm.

“Well, I'm not risking it. Take your pyjamas off.”

“What! Oh, come on, Miles...”

“I mean it, Mars: I'm not having your wet trousers making my sheets all soggy. If you want to share, take your pyjamas off.”

“No! Come on, Miles, that's not fair!”

“Suit yourself,” said Miles, pretending to roll over to go back to sleep. And an opportune thunderclap outside the window finished the job.

“Okay!” agreed Martin, frantically. “Okay, I'll take them off!”

He pulled his pyjama trousers off. He wasn't wearing a jacket: he never did, because he found them uncomfortable. He moved about a lot in bed, and if he did wear a jacket it always got twisted round. So once his trousers were off he was naked, and he clasped his hands over his groin and moved towards the bed.

“Just a moment,” said Miles, grabbing his torch and turning it on. “Let me see: I want to make sure there isn't a drop of pee hanging off the end.”

Martin opened his mouth to argue, but then decided there was no point. He moved his hands, allowing his brother to shine the torch onto his genitals.

“Okay,” said Miles, after about five seconds, “you're dry. Come on in.”

And he made room for Martin to get into bed beside him, and Martin climbed in quickly, pulled the covers over them and huddled up against his brother. Miles put an arm round him and held him.

“It's okay, Mars,” he said, “You're safe here. If you've annoyed some alien god somehow he can't zap you now without zapping me, too, and no god would want to zap me because I'm a hero. Besides, lightning can't hit you inside a house.”

“A bolt could come through the window.”

“I don't think so. Anyway, lightning usually aims at metal, doesn't it? And there's no metal here... well, I suppose your alien brain could be part-metal, but it's probably some weird metal that lightning doesn't like. So you're safe, okay?”

“Yes, but... “

“Trust me,” said Miles, hugging him. “And even if I'm wrong, at least it means we'll be going wherever you go next together, won't we? So we can look after each other. So relax, okay?”

So Martin tried to relax, and Miles held him tight and did his best to reassure him. And gradually Martin managed to calm down a bit, and the gaps between the lightning and the thunder grew longer as the centre of the storm moved away, until at last the thunder stopped. Martin relaxed completely and then made to get out of bed, but Miles pulled him close again.

“Stay here,” he invited. “You're nice and warm now, and you'll get cold if you get out of bed. Let's just share the bed tonight.”

Martin shrugged: he'd shared a bed with Miles before, and he knew he'd be able to get to sleep without any problem. And Miles was right: he was nice and warm now. So he settled down and snuggled up to his brother once more, and soon they both fell asleep.


“You okay?” Miles asked his brother when he woke up the following morning.

“Fine. Thanks, Miles. I mean, I know how stupid it is to be scared like that, but I just can't help it.”

“I know. It's okay – maybe on the planet you originally came from storms are a lot more nasty, and actually try to kill people.”

“There aren't any thunderstorms on Mars.”

“Then maybe it isn't Mars you come from. It's got to be a planet where they build androids that look like humans, though, hasn't it?”

“I'm not an android, either.”

“So you say. And I suppose androids wouldn't really be scared of thunder, either... but there's another way to check. Lie on your back.”

“Why?”

“Just do it, Mars, okay?”

Martin shrugged and lay on his back, and Miles slipped a hand down his tummy and started to stroke lightly all around his brother's genitals.

“What are you doing?” demanded Martin.

“Relax. This is going to prove something, Mars, so just let me do it, okay?”

So Martin relaxed and Miles went on touching him lightly. And, just as he had found with Graham, this technique worked: soon Martin's penis was stiffening up. Once it was as hard as it could get Miles stroked it gently.

“That feels nice,” Martin told him.

“And it proves you're not an android, too,” said Miles, still stroking. “I bet androids don't have willies that go hard, so you must be a proper person after all. Of course, it's still pretty clear you've got an alien brain, but your body seems normal.”

“Why does it get like that?” Martin asked him.

“Don't you know? No, I suppose you don't have those classes I have. Well, it's not important for you to know at the moment. There’s something much more important that you need to know: I think you've got a disease, Mars.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well...” Miles wasn't in his brother's league when it came to IQ, but he was quite bright, and since shining his torch onto his brother's groin the previous evening he'd had time to think up another way to tease him. “I think you've got Monkey Disease, Mars.”

“What's Monkey Disease?”

“Well, it's probably got a long Latin name, but I don't know what it is. It's very rare. What happens is that your body sort of goes into reverse evolution, and you start turning into a monkey.”

“I don't think that's possible – and why do you think it's happening to me?”

“Because you're starting to grow fur,” said Miles, slipping a finger to the base of his brother's penis and stroking the tiny hairs there. “This is going to grow and spread until it covers your whole body. Sometimes your back sort of curves a bit, and they said that sometimes you can even grow a tail, though I'm not sure if I really believe that. It seems pretty unlikely. Still, I suppose just about anything is possible. Anyway, it looks as if you've only just started, so it'll be ages before you have any serious problems with it.”

“Is there a cure?”

“I don't know. I'll ask my friend – he's the one who told me about it.”

Miles went back to stroking his brother's penis for a few more seconds, then he threw back the bedclothes.

“See, there's hardly any fur yet,” he said, looking closely at his brother's genitals, “so I'm sure you don't really need to worry yet. Stand up and let's have a proper look.”

Martin obediently stood up, and Miles caressed the erection a little longer and then looked at it again. He didn't think his brother's was much bigger than his own, which pleased him. Then he let go and stood up himself.

“Let's get dressed,” he said, “and then you can teach me a bit about geometry.”


Sunday April 6th

From now on I'm going to keep this journal in code, because my life has become very confusing in the last few days and I don't want anyone else reading anything I write here. The journal is kept hidden away in the good hiding-place I found, but you can't be too careful, so I'm going to go on using the Elvish alphabet Tolkein invented for Lord of the Rings, written right to left. It means the journal's going to take a bit longer to write for a week or so until I get used to it, but it's a lot more secure.

My brother told me something really strange today: he said he thinks I've got a disease that involves reverse evolution. I'm virtually certain that isn't possible – after all, it seems to fly in the face of science. And I know Miles likes teasing me, so probably he's making the whole thing up. Except it does explain the little hairs round my penis...

And it's not just the hairs. This morning before we got up he touched me on my penis and testicles, and it made my penis go hard. I don't know why that happened, or why it felt so strange when he stroked it afterwards: it should have been really embarrassing, being touched in a personal way like that, and in a way it was, but at the same time it felt nice. Actually it felt really nice, and when he stopped I almost asked him to do it again. It was a sort of warm feeling.

He's never done anything like that before, and we've shared a bed a few times, either when we've been on holiday or when he's let me get in with him during thunderstorms, like last night. In fact I don't think we've even seen each other undressed for over a year, since we had that camping trip the summer before last. I know things happen to boys when they grow up – they start thinking about girls and stuff like that. But Miles has never mentioned girls at all, and I'm really not interested in them, either, so I don't think it can be that. I really have got to try to find out something about sex, because I'm sure if I knew about that it would be easier to work out what's happening to me. Maybe Miles can teach me – he sort of said last night that he was taught something about it in some special classes at school. Perhaps if I help him with his maths he can teach me about sex...

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Martin's complete ignorance of all things sexual is proving very confusing for him, and that situation won't be improving any time soon, either. And in the next chapter he's going to meet someone new...

I'm always keen to find out what my readers think about my stories, so if you have any comments, please send them to me at gothmog@nyms.net – I'll do my best to reply to every mail I receive.

Copyright 2009: all rights reserved. Please do not reprint, repost or otherwise reproduce this or any part of it anywhere without my written permission.

David Clarke